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Portadown Disturbances Cancelled due to Shortage of Ugly Bitter Women There weren't angry scenes in Portadown yesterday as serious overnight disturbances had to be cancelled due to a shortage of ugly women to bitterly blame members of the other community in TV interviews in the aftermath of the trouble. ‘This is another new low in inter-community relations in this town, and indeed in Northern Ireland, and we must immediately enter into dialogue with our colleagues in the Unionist community in order to find a speedy resolution to the problem’ commented a local Sinn Fein Councillor disingenuously.
An Ulster Unionist politician refuted this suggestion, commenting, with obvious emotion, that he had ‘never thought he would see the day, always thought that we had a virtually limitless supply of these women in Northern Ireland and to suddenly encounter a shortage marks a distressing new episode in Ulster’s troubled history. Next thing you know there will be a shortage of self-righteous politicians who blame politicians from the other community, often with blatant disregard for the facts at hand.’ The RUC chief Constable also expressed his extreme disappointment at the turn of events, noting that many of his officers in the area had large mortgages to pay and could badly do with some overtime. He pointed out however that it was not up to the security forces to provide a long term solution to the problem but rather that this was up to political leaders of both communities to get together and find a way forward, no matter how ridiculous it sounded to both sides. A spokeswoman for the Women's Coalition expressed her outrage at what she called ‘another example of the sexism inherent in Northern Ireland’s politics’ but failed to comment coherently on the actual matter in hand, or to suggest any way forward that did not include the word "children" or allusions to worthy but entirely impractical community strategies. Perhaps hardest hit were the young people on both sides of the political divide. Several youths we spoke to expressed their bitter disappointment at the cancellation of the rioting. Said one young unionist: ‘Its at time like this that we realise that everyone in this town is in this together, and ourselves and the Fenian bastards just got together down at the peace line and had a bit of a singsong and handed in a joint letter of protest to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Dr. John Reid.' |
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